


Dancing Monkey

by VoiceOfNurse



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: APSHDS, Angst, Carer Strain, Depression, Gen, Hopeful Ending, Inspired by Fanfiction, Mental Health Issues, Steve Has a Bad Day, Steve Rogers & Sam Wilson Friendship, Steve Rogers Feels, Steve Rogers Has Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-11
Updated: 2016-09-11
Packaged: 2018-08-14 08:30:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,403
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8005777
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VoiceOfNurse/pseuds/VoiceOfNurse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes, Steve has a hard time pretending that everything is okay.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dancing Monkey

**Author's Note:**

> Profuse apologies to my little fanbase, who have probably been waiting for me to update my other works. I haven't abandoned anything, I'm just having one of those periods where Real Life jumps up and kicks me in the arse. I'll get back to writing as soon as I possibly can. 
> 
> Thank you, always, to the lovely OMOWatcher, who poked me into doing something productive with my day, and turned my grumpiness into some Steve Angst. 
> 
> Once again, based in Lauralot's APSHDS universe, because apparently I live there now.

Sometimes, Steve didn’t feel like a real person. 

There was probably some perfectly logical reason behind it, some long, hard to spell word that whatever psychologist SHIELD had assigned to him would trot out with that grating tone of sympathetic triumph that seemed to be standard amongst all of them. There was probably a whole passage about it in their long, complicated book of Things That Make People Broken about not feeling real, where Steve could be picked apart and put into categories and assigned some carefully constructed ‘treatment’. 

He would have found it funny, had he been fully present in his own head. Captain America, watching the city lights play across the ceiling of the most futuristic tower in New York, wondering if he was a real person at all, or just some sort of strange observer piggybacking through life, pretending to be like everybody else. Captain America  _ wasn’t  _ a real person, of course; he was a dancing monkey made to sell war bonds and badly translated into the new millennium. 

Perhaps that was the problem; perhaps Steve Rogers had vanished into Howard Stark’s make-believe-machine and died the death that had been chasing him since he made his way into a world that seemed too challenging for him to survive. Whatever came out wasn’t a real person at all; all chemicals and sci-fi ray-beams mounted onto Steve Rogers’ corpse. 

It would make sense of how he was feeling; he was an artificial man, a personification of the American flag and twisted World War II ideals. There were probably books out there written about creatures like him; automatons that didn’t realise that they weren’t actually alive, or perhaps ghosts who went on drifting through their lives unaware that they had actually died. 

“Daddy, are you awake? JARVIS said it’s after nine.” 

Steve blinked, but didn’t move for a moment. If Steve wasn’t real, then Bucky was a complete fabrication. He remembered a grubby child with scuffed elbows, strong hands defending him from fights he should have known better than to start, and the perfect body of a man, dressed up and ready to die for his country. Bucky had left for war and never come back; Steve had chased after him, but he’d been too late. 

The man he’d pulled from Zola’s lab hadn't been Bucky any more than Captain America was Steve. They’d both died in the hands of scientists who thought they could dominate the world by playing God. They were opposite sides of a coin, though; Steve created from ideals and righteous salvation, Bucky forged through sick ambition and torture. Stuck back to back, forged together but unable to see eye-to-eye like they once had. 

He wondered, sometimes, if it would have been better if he hadn’t followed his gut and strayed into that room. If he’d just stayed focussed and moved on; missed Bucky by moments and left him to burn. It probably would have been kinder, in the long run; what was a few more moments of pain, then death, when compared with the slow, torturous degradation into what Bucky was now? 

Bucky would have died in fire, Steve in ice; always opposite, but at least together in death. 

“Daddy…?” 

Bucky sounded worried, needing Steve to make it better. It didn’t matter that Steve desperately wanted to stay in bed, maybe sleep until he felt like a person again, or have a real person step in and save  _ him  _ for once. Bucky had forged Steve into his daddy; yet another person that needed him to don a mask and be someone. 

Feeling guilty, because he should be grateful that he had Bucky at all, Steve sat up and pasted a smile onto his face. He had no right to feel bitter about anything; he’d never been tortured, never suffered anything close to what Bucky had, and Bucky needed him. His problems were nothing short of pathetic when measured up beside Bucky. 

“Sorry, Bucky, I must have overslept.” He felt like he hadn’t slept at all, and would have quite easily rolled over and let the day slip past him, but he couldn’t shirk his duty to Bucky. He needed to get up, get dressed, and get Bucky ready for the day, make sure he was safe and happy until it was time to sleep again. People did similar things every day; the idea that Captain America couldn’t manage it was ridiculous. 

Bucky, still hovering beside the door in his pajamas, frowned. “Are you sick?” he asked, all childish concern and none of the rough commiseration that Steve remembered and craved. Bucky used to take care of him, and it had grated. Bucky had been strong, perfect, with the whole world open to him, but he had tethered himself to a tiny, sickly boy who couldn’t even be grateful when Bucky helped him. Steve had never realised quite how much he’d miss it until it was gone. 

“No, just forgot to set an alarm. Nothing to worry about.” Steve’s smile felt plastic, but it must have looked real enough, because Bucky grinned back. Bucky, who had given Steve bed baths and fed him when he’d been too exhausted or delirious with fever to do it for himself. Bucky, who Steve had resented for it, who Steve had shouted vitriol at more often than he’d thanked. If Bucky had been able to care for him in their damp, rundown apartment with little money and less access to medicine, then Steve should be able to return the favour in the future, where practically everything they could ever dream of was provided on a silver platter. 

“It’s Tony’s birthday tomorrow. Did you remember?” Bucky made his way into the room, beelining to the dresser and pulling out clothes. “We need to get him a present. Nat and Clint have gone out, and Bruce is busy in his lab, so they can’t help. It has to be a  _ good _ present, though, because Tony always gets the best presents for everybody else.” 

A pair of sweatpants and a bright blue t-shirt materialised in front of Steve’s face, joined, after a moment’s thought, by a pair of underpants and mismatched socks. “I don’t know what to get him, though. I don’t have any money, and Tony can buy everything he needs. I thought we could get him a bear, because it must be lonely when he has to travel all over the world by himself. He can’t take Dum-E with him, and I think that makes him sad, but Bucky Bear wasn’t so sure that that was a good idea.” 

Bucky was clearly in a good mood, Steve thought as he mechanically changed his clothes. He thought about washing, because that was what people were supposed to do, but he couldn’t face the idea of getting wet. One day in sweats without shaving wouldn’t cause the world to end. “I’m not sure what sort of bear Tony would like,” he said, hoping that his voice sounded less dead than he thought it did. “There’s already an Iron Bear.” 

On any other day, the image of Tony Stark, well groomed and dressed in his most expensive suit, clutching a large, fluffy teddy bear, complete with ridiculous neck bow, would have been funny. Steve couldn’t find his sense of humour, unfortunately. 

Bucky nodded. “I know. That’s what Bucky Bear said. We have all the Bearvengers already and if we gave him Pepper Bear she’d probably be lonely up in his office all day, without any other bears to talk to.” 

“Maybe we should just make him a cake?” Steve asked, perhaps a little desperately. There was a very real chance that he’d break down crying in the middle of the store if they had to go bear shopping today. That, or he’d do something utterly unforgivable and turn tail and run, leaving Bucky and everybody else to fend for themselves while he hid under a bridge somewhere. Knowing his luck, he’d do both, and there would be pictures of him doing it on the internet. 

“A cake isn’t really a birthday present, though… you’re supposed to have presents  _ and  _ cake.” It was just Steve’s luck that Bucky was having a talkative day. 

A little desperate now, Steve cast around for something,  _ anything _ , that would serve as an alternative to going shopping. “How about you make Tony something while the cake’s cooking? He’ll probably like that a lot more than anything we can buy him from a shop.” 

“I could draw him a picture, but that’s more like making him a card than an actual present. I want him to have all three. Tony deserves all three.” Perhaps it was Steve’s imagination, but Bucky sounded a little bit judgemental; as though Steve had in some way slighted Tony. And wouldn’t that be typical, if Bucky decided he liked Tony better than Steve and started policing how people acted around his new best friend. Tony didn’t deserve Bucky’s loyalty, Steve thought uncharitably; he could buy as many friends as he wanted. 

Typically, he felt sick with guilt for even entertaining such an idea a moment later. It was just that sort of day. 

“Maybe you can make him a card  _ as well  _ as a present.” It was difficult not to snap at Bucky, who didn’t deserve it in the least. It wasn’t his fault that Steve wasn’t managing to pretend he was fine, or that every harmless little thing that came out of Bucky’s mouth seemed to cut like a knife this morning.

Bucky seemed to think about that, which gave Steve enough time to leave his bedroom. He thought for a moment about going to the communal kitchen, where there was the chance of someone else catching Bucky’s attention, but that felt like shirking his duties. Bucky depended on Steve, not the others, to meet his needs. Steve had taken on the Nazis with nothing but a shield and a gaudy costume; making sure Bucky was adequately medicated, fed and entertained should not be an issue. 

By the time Steve had set Bucky up with a glass of juice and a tutorial on making a no-cut, no-sew bear out of a sock, Steve felt a little bit more under control. Making Bucky breakfast was something he could do by rote, and didn’t need a great deal of thought. There wasn’t really any way he could get toast and microwaved oatmeal wrong, of course, but with the day Steve was having he very nearly managed it. It was only timely intervention from JARVIS that prevented disaster. 

All the same, Bucky ate his food without complaint, already deeply involved with a selection of odd socks, a packet of rubber bands, and the stuffing liberated from an old pillow. Steve was selfishly glad that Bucky had declared himself more than capable of following the instructions and refused any help. Apparently, he had to do it himself, or Tony wouldn’t like it. Steve wondered what that said about him, that his help would utterly ruin Tony’s birthday bear, but it did give him enough time to pull himself together. Small mercies, he supposed. 

They actually had all the ingredients to make a cake, if they substituted caster sugar for granulated and put jam in the middle rather than cream. Toppings would be more difficult, but Steve found a tub of alarmingly yellow frosting lurking at the back of the fridge that would do in a pinch. Steve had witnessed Tony’s baking first hand; if Stark complained about a probably flat, disturbingly yellow birthday cake, Steve would very likely punch him. 

“Do we need to go out and get cake stuff?” Normally, it was near impossible to get Bucky to leave the tower, especially at the prospect of going to the supermarket. It just figured that today of all days he felt able to brave the crowds and unpredictability. 

“No, we have everything we need right here. We can make him a Victoria sponge with jam. And there’s some cool yellow frosting for the top. I’m pretty sure we have some jelly beans as well; we can write his name on the top with them.” 

Bucky abandoned his sock bear for a moment to come and look, pushing up under Steve’s arm to supervise what Steve was setting out on the counter. He was solid, warm, and for a brief moment Steve felt real before Bucky chattered his approval and went back to his crafting, oblivious to the void he left behind. 

Rather than doing anything productive, Steve let JARVIS turn on the oven, then rested back against the work surface and watched as Bucky quietly completed his bear, metal fingers working the slightly tatty sock fabric into something resembling a soft toy. It probably signified something, that Bucky could use his metal arm to create, rather than destroy. Bucky had always been able to turn his hand to any skill he wanted, though, so it shouldn’t have really been a surprise. 

Steve, who had never been able to draw quite the same after the serum had changed the shape of his hands and the way he saw colours, was irrationally jealous for a moment. He felt ridiculous a second later, of course, because he was looking at his psychologically traumatised friend making a bear from a sock with his prosthetic arm. 

Bucky probably would have enjoyed making the cake more if Steve had let him play with the scales, but Steve wasn’t sure he could deal with the mess. He measured the ingredients out himself while Bucky put the finishing touches to his toy, getting everything into separate containers. Thankfully, Bucky was too overjoyed with his creation to mind that Steve had started the cake without him; he paraded the toy between the mixing bowls for a few minutes before taking the apron that Steve offered and placing Tony’s new bear in the pocket. 

“What shall we call him?” he asked, accepting the largest bowl and a wooden spoon from Steve with a grin. He took to mixing the sugar and margarine with abandon, sending little flicks all over the place before subsiding with a muttered ‘sorry’. Steve got a cloth. 

“Maybe we should let Tony decide?” Steve wasn’t feeling in the least creative; putting together a cake seemed to be the limit of his ability today, which would have been embarrassing if he had been feeling less empty. Captain America Has Bad Day- Can’t Name Bear; it would probably make for an appropriately scathing article in a gossip rag. 

Nodding, Bucky prodded the last unmixed lump of margarine in an attempt to get it to blend in with the rest. “Yes, that would be best. Bucky Bear agrees.” One slightly greasy finger pointed towards the table, where Bucky Bear was sitting, watching them with an imperious little scowl on his furry face. Steve didn’t think the bear had ever looked so disapproving, stitched on expression or no. 

Naturally, the cake curdled spectacularly when they added the eggs, but Bucky didn’t remember that it wasn’t supposed to look that way, and Steve had already decided that Tony would like his cake or wear it. He mumbled something that he hoped was adequately encouraging and offered Bucky the flour. 

Steve greased the cake tins himself, because he had a feeling that Bucky would complain no end if he got cooking oil in the joints of his metal hand. Luckily, Bucky didn’t seem to mind, too busy attacking the inevitable lumps that had formed in their cake mix. He added probably too much vanilla extract while Steve was otherwise occupied, and, if the sudden shift towards bright red was anything to go by, food colouring from the cupboard as well. Steve shrugged and tried to smile; they could probably pass it off as an Iron Man cake.

Bucky seemed in complete agreement when Steve suggested as much, energetically spooning cake mix both into the trays and onto the counter. Steve tried not to flinch at the mess. There was no reason to worry, after all; Tony quite literally paid people to clean up after them. All the same, the state of the kitchen was irrationally grating on him. After having JARVIS set a timer, he decided he was actually more alarmed by the idea of someone in his space than he was the mess, and set about cleaning it up himself. 

Not at all interested in helping clean up the kitchen, Bucky peered through the oven door for a few moments, hoping to see some change in his creation, before losing interest and going over to the sink to meticulously wash his hands. Once he’d judged himself clean enough, he stripped off the apron, retrieved Tony’s bear, and returned to his craft materials. Steve watched him start to draw what looked like Dum-E on a piece of card before going back to his cleaning, hoping that reordering the kitchen would make him feel a little more in control. 

It worked to an extent, at least until the moment when JARVIS informed them that the cake was ready to come out of the oven. Predictably, Bucky was over like a shot, keeping to the very minimum safe distance as Steve removed the trays from the oven and carefully turned the cakes out onto a rack. They hadn’t really risen, as expected, but thankfully Bucky didn’t seem to care; he was more interested in enthusing with JARVIS about the deep red colour that the castoffs were, and how red was Tony’s favorite.   

Steve found himself looking at their sad attempt at a cake; flat as a pancake and smelling strongly of vanilla extract, and to his horror felt a lump rising in his throat. He couldn’t even make a damned  _ cake  _ right, and still Bucky was looking at him like he was the best thing in the world. Like Steve was something amazing. Of course he thought Steve was amazing; Steve didn’t abuse him. He’d never had a decent caregiver, so of course he thought Steve was the best there was. 

It was probably the only fortunate thing that had happened to Steve that day, that Sam chose that exact moment to come wandering into the kitchen. Steve hadn’t even realised he was in the tower, and for a second seriously considered the fact that he might be hallucinating. It felt about ten times more likely when Sam, using some bizarre counsellor sixth sense, swept right over to Bucky and started enthusing about cake with him. It gave him a moment to face the sink and get a grip of himself, so hallucination or not, Steve was grateful. 

“It’ll take a good hour for the cake to be cool enough to put the frosting on. You don’t want it to melt right off and make a huge mess of your awesome cake, right?” Sam had effectively gained Bucky’s full attention, and was already steering him towards the door. “Why don’t you leave Daddy to keep an eye on it for you, hm? Natasha wants to show you what she got Tony for his birthday.” 

Steve listened to them leave; Bucky’s heavy footsteps charging towards the elevator, already calling for JARVIS to deliver him to Natasha’s floor, and closed his eyes. In a minute, he decided, he would get himself together. He’d tidy the crumbs from the counter, put something over the cakes while they cooled, and get his Captain America mask firmly into place. In an hour, Bucky would come back, and Steve would be fine again. 

Of course, when he turned around Sam was sitting at the kitchen table, though rather than staring he was drawing on a castoff piece of Bucky’s paper, apparently completely focussed on his task. Steve didn’t believe it for a second, of course, but it allowed him to pretend for a little while, that there was no expectations. He sat beside Sam at the table, watching him draw two winged figures flying side by side with a slightly sad smile on his face, before picking a crayon and a piece of paper for himself.

It wasn’t alright. It probably wouldn’t be for a while, but for a little while Steve felt like he could forget. Sam leaned just a little closer, a silent, non-judgemental comfort. For the first time all day, Steve didn’t force himself to smile as he put crayon to paper and started sketching out a dancing monkey. 


End file.
